Whatever Your Selling -- I’m Not Buying
Published Sept. 10, 2006
On a recent road trip my family and I got to see how much of the rest of the country lives. We
sampled their hotels, restaurants and beaches; we listened to their radio stations and shopped at
their boutiques; we baked in the hot sun in the Mojave, and enjoyed the cool sea breezes of San
Diego. And, more than once along the well-traveled roads, we observed the much-larger-than-life
billboards of a naked man, thanks to clothing retailer Abercrombie and Fitch.
OK, it was just his naked torso, sans head, and it delicately tapered off just before he exposed
himself to passersby. But enlarged to roughly the size of a barn, there was no mistaking what was
going on below his unbuckled belt. To tell the truth I’m not exactly sure what the billboard was
selling, but I can tell you this: I’m not buying.
I may be a mother and approaching an age where hip young teens might consider me old, but I
think most of my friends would agree with the pubescent audience of Abercrombie and Fitch – the
guy on the billboard was hot. At least from the neck down. Then again, “hot” is not something I want
to see when I’m stuck in traffic with three kids in tow. “Hot” is not something I want to explain to my
eight year-old daughter who wants to know why there’s a naked man on a billboard, and “hot” is
not something to which I want my sons to aspire.
During the same road trip we made a pit stop in Las Vegas and marveled at the sights of Sin
City, kids in tow. Here we expected to see photos of half-naked women and advertisements for R-
rated shows. We were prepared for it; we even talked about the wild adult-nature of the town itself.
But a billboard marketing sex to kids through a national chain store? I was as grossed out as my
eleven year-old.
The Abercrombie and Fitch company line, if you care to take a gander at their tasteless website,
is that they tout themselves as a “lifestyle retailer” and the ads are meant as attention-grabbers.
The glossy black and white shot of a topless young girl laying astride an equally topless and buff
young man certainly grabbed me. And if you click the link marked “skinny jeans for girls” you’ll get
a racy video that’s sure to get the attention of every teenage boy, though he may forget he ever
wanted to purchase a pair of jeans to begin with.
My disgust faded as we continued to traverse the country, until I came across fellow columnist
Marybeth Hicks from Washington, D.C., who coincidentally had penned her own column of loathing
aimed at the low-brow advertising of Abercrombie and Fitch. Clearly I am not alone in the belief that
retailers like this one are corrupting childhood innocence by selling sex to our kids in pursuit of the
Almighty Dollar.
So, armed with the encouragement of fellow parents who find these kinds of ads tacky and
inappropriate to say the least, I contacted the customer service department of Abercrombie and
Fitch to have my say. Not surprisingly, I reached the voice mail of a man who, I assume, works fully
clothed behind his desk and probably disregards the comments of a disgruntled mom.
I guess the next logical step for parents who aren’t buying the lifestyle Abercrombie is trying to
sell is simply to shut our wallets. It’s only money, but it might just be the kind of attention-grabbing
stunt the company is so fond of.